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Scandal at the SFA: how a rogue accountant stole their money

11/7/2022

3 Comments

 
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Robert Dixon, Treasurer of the Scottish Football Association
A major fraud in Scottish football was uncovered in 1906 when the SFA Treasurer was found to have embezzled the equivalent of a quarter of a million pounds. But there was nothing anyone could do about it – the money was gone and the culprit was too ill to answer charges.
   The man who left the gaping hole in the Scottish Football Association accounts was Robert Dixon, a trusted accountant who had held office for over a decade. His clever fraud caused a scandal that shocked those who thought they knew him well.
   Dixon was a director of Morton and had a position of considerable influence in the game, yet he was living a lie. Born in Lockerbie, after his mother died he moved with his father to Greenock where he trained to become an accountant. He set up in business and threw himself into local life, becoming an upstanding member of the community as Treasurer of the Greenock Total Abstinence Society and Session Clerk of Mid Parish Church.
   But it was in football that he found his niche as a valued administrator because of his financial acumen, and in 1891 he was elected to the SFA committee as a representative of Renfrewshire Association.
   His club at the time was the wonderfully-named Greenock Abstainers, a short-lived organisation which only joined the SFA in 1889 and had a remarkable record in their three Scottish Cup campaigns, losing 0-8 to Port Glasgow Athletic, 0-13 to Newmains and 0-20 to Johnstone. Based at Upper Ingleston Park, the club folded in 1893, at which point Dixon moved to Bute Rangers (Rothesay) to retain his place on the SFA committee.
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Unstinting praise for Robert Dixon when he brought international football to Greenock (Greenock Telegraph, 15 March 1902, via British Newspaper Archive)
A year later, in 1894, he was elected SFA Treasurer as a director of Greenock Morton and remained in post until the fraud was uncovered in 1906. Meanwhile his influence continued to grow. He was elected president of Morton, then chairman when it became a limited company in 1896. He was on the SFA's international selection committee and through his influence, Greenock hosted the Scotland v Wales international in 1902, the only international ever to come to the town.
   However, all this time he had a secret and trouble was brewing. As Treasurer of the SFA he was trusted with their financial management, and when the Association decided in 1899 to invest £1,800 (the equivalent of about £250k today) he was left to make the arrangements.
   He put the money in 'Consols' (consolidated annuities, a type of government bond with no scheduled end date, which offered perpetual interest payments). He registered the Consols in his own name, which allowed him, a few months later, secretly to sell them and keep the money. He covered the fraud by retaining the original purchase receipt and paying the notional interest, about £42, into the SFA accounts each year. To any casual observer, even to the auditors, there was nothing wrong.
   This could have continued almost indefinitely but in 1906 Dixon fell ill. The SFA's initial reaction was sympathy for his inability to work and in April they awarded him an honorarium of £100 for his excellent service, then the following month he was re-elected treasurer despite his continuing illness.
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That sympathy vanished in the autumn when the expected annual interest payment did not come through. In Dixon's absence the Finance Committee asked the Bank of England about the Consol investment, only to be told it no longer existed, nor had it done for several years.
   As it dawned on them that they had been duped, Dixon was removed from office and the SFA held a special meeting to decide what had to be done. There were heated calls for recrimination but with the culprit too ill to respond and reported to be penniless, they were left with no option but to write off the loss.
   Dixon never recovered and died of tuberculosis in 1909 aged 45, leaving a wife and three young daughters. The money was all gone, with his estate valued at just £86, which begs the question what he did with it. As an abstainer and a pillar of the church he could hardly have got away with a high-flying lifestyle, so it appears that the explanation was more mundane, and he used it to prop up his business.
   The SFA, on the other hand, realised its systems had allowed too much trust to be placed in one man, and it introduced checks and balances to ensure nothing like this could ever happen again. 


​Robert Dixon
Born Dryfesdale, Lockerbie, 4 July 1863
Died South Street, Greenock, 1 April 1909
​
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Two of Robert Dixon's medals came up for auction at Graham Budd Auctions in 2019.
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The Scotland team and officials in 1895, with Robert Dixon back row, far right.
3 Comments
Alastair Mitchell
11/7/2022 02:13:34 pm

Fabulous story. But I think you’re a bit lenient on the auditors. I’d imagine this was a sizeable, and novel, investment on the SFA balence sheet. Establishing title to include on the balence sheet would have been standard audit practice in the day, most certainly for the first year and probably as a tick box when checking value for subsequent years.

As you know, secretaries/treasurers skipping with funds was not unknown …

Reply
Andy Mitchell
11/7/2022 02:37:53 pm

In fact, the auditors had to wriggle out of responsibility. "On the request of the Chairman, the Secretary read a letter which had been received from the chartered accountant who had duly audited the books. It expressed regret at the loss sustained the Association. He saw from the docket these Consols were included in a statement of the funds made by his clerk, and signed by him. His saw the vouchers for payment the to Bank of England, and this was all he had to do in the matter. His duty as auditor was merely to check the income and expenditure, as shown in the Treasurer's cash-book. For a fee of two guineas he did not undertake to supervise the investments and properties of the Finance Committee. That was the duty of the committee, which should have met from time to time."

Reply
Douglas Gorman
7/8/2022 06:29:28 pm

Yes, a fascinating story. Thanks Andy. Reading about it I see that each year Mr Dixon appears to have shown the SFA honorary auditors the original purchase receipt (April 1899) in his name for the Consols even though he sold them just five months later (September 1899). He explained that was the only documentary evidence he had because:

1) there was no scrip (certificate) for the Consols as the Bank of England dealt with their purchase like opening an account (correct)

2) a receipt was issued for the original purchase (correct)

3) the Consols could not be purchased in the name of an organisation (correct)

4) Consols could only purchased in the name of a single person (incorrect)

The Consols could presumably have been purchased in the name of the secretary and the treasurer.

The limited extent of the work of the external auditor appears to have come as a surprise to the SFA committee and seems to have amounted to little more than the work undertaken by the SFA honorary auditors. To compound matters the external auditor’s signature appeared in the wrong place in the accounts suggesting to the reader that a more extensive check of investments would have been completed.

The value of the Consols appears to have been around £1,800.

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    All blog posts, unless stated, are written by Andy Mitchell, who is researching Scottish sport on a regular basis.